The Rhodesian Academy of Music’s monthly lunch-hour concert at Bulawayo City Hall yesterday featured pupils who gained first-class awards in the recent Eisteddfod.
Rose Tobias (11), winner of the Academy’s scholarship of one year’s free tuition, gave a technically impressive if over-literal account of Schubert’s B Minor Ecossaise, and Denis Frager (10), winner of the Lyle Drayton Cup as the most promising under-sixteen, made a Mozart movement a well-articulated but episodic affair.
Tiny Rosemary Walker (8) impressed with vigorous part-playing in a Bach Invention, Carol Owen (14) with unusually sure intonation on the violin, and Angela Reith (10) with a dexterous left-hand.
Monique Seckel, fourteen-year-old violinist, cannot be blamed for appearing bored with a dull Sarabande and Allegro, and intonation problems bedeviled the rhythmic cello of Sheila Walker (13).
Barbara Kennedy (9) was fluent and confident but the expression seemed carefully taught rather than personally felt, while Joan Buehler (18), despite firm fingering, made Debussy essentially unmagical with muddy textures.
Vote for the most promising performer goes to violinist Gavin Hitchcock (16) for an innately musical, expressive and natural account of a Kreisler Minuet.